NetNames executive discusses latest piracy analysis

The number of Internet users who are downloading or streaming pirated content online is staggering.

A new analysis, commissioned by NBCUniversal and conducted by NetNames, finds that in January some 327 million unique Internet users in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region accessed pirated content.

Equally astounding is that about a quarter of all bandwidth used in those regions during the period study was employed to access infringing content.

In this YouTube video, David Price, director of Piracy Analysis for NetNames, discusses the findings.

The findings, presented in a new report, also show nearly a quarter of all Internet bandwidth used in January in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region was employed to access infringing content.

A major pay TV piracy operation has been busted in Africa, leading to the arrest of two Chinese nationals in Botswana after a year-long clandestine undercover operation. Irdeto, a content security company with joint headquarters in Amsterdam and Beijing, has revealed it has been working with DTH operator MultiChoice Africa and the Botswana Police Serious Crime Squad to investigate and disrupt the illegal distribution of pay TV content across the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps said last week that the initial findings of an ongoing analysis of local newscasts by Los Angeles-area stations revealed dominant crime coverage but minimal reporting on local government.